A conventional telephone equipped with a camera has a function to select one of previously stored graphics still images and overlay (that is, “still-image overlay”) the selected graphics still image on a still image newly taken by the camera.
Further, Japanese Patent Kokai (Laid-open) Publication No. 2000-175166 discloses a videophone apparatus which can send and receive a moving-image and voice. This videophone apparatus has a hide function which prevents the other party from becoming aware of the whereabouts of a human figure (sender) by overlaying (that is, “still-image overlaying”) a still image on the background of the human figure (sender) taken by the image pickup device to make it hard to identify the background or by replacing the background with a still image.
However, the above-described conventional telephone equipped with a camera can just overlay a still image provided in advance on a still image newly taken by the camera, and cannot send or receive a moving-image.
Further, the above-described conventional videophone apparatus has a function to send and receive a moving-image, but when the hide function is used, a part of a sent composite image becomes a still image. Therefore, there is a problem that a part of the function to send a moving-image is wasted (that is, the function to send a moving-image is not put into full use).
Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a moving-image synthesis device, a moving-image synthesis method, and an information terminal apparatus with a moving-image synthesis function, which can generate composite moving-image data to provide a full moving-image by synthesizing image-data-for-synthesis (that is, “data for moving-image overlay”) and the input moving-image data in real time.